Emergency Inspection Called by NTSB for Bell 407 Helicopters

The board urged the FAA and Transport Canada to order examination of tail boom assemblies.

Meg Godlewski

Friday, December 02, 2022 at 05:07 PM ET

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Bell 407 [Credit: Bell Helicopter]

Key Takeaways:

The NTSB is urging immediate and more frequent inspections of Bell 407 helicopter tail boom attachment hardware following a June Hawaii accident where a tail boom separated in flight.
Investigation of the crash, which injured multiple people, revealed missing or fractured hardware, with some fittings showing fatigue fractures.
The failure occurred just 114 hours after the last inspection, leading the NTSB to recommend reducing the current 300-hour inspection interval.
The NTSB calls on U.S. and Canadian aviation regulators to mandate these inspections and require operators to report their findings to prevent catastrophic failures in the widely used helicopter model.

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The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) is urging immediate and more frequent inspections of Bell 407 helicopters stemming from an accident that took place in Hawaii in June involving a tour helicopter.

The recommendation issued Friday asks both U.S. and Canadian aviation regulators to require both immediate and more frequent inspections of certain components on Bell Textron Inc.’s Bell 407 helicopters.